Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. Carter, and I'm gonna be guiding you through this lesson on social action.

I'm sure if you really, really have a good go and have a go at every question and be really engaged.

You're gonna learn loads today.

So in today's lesson, by the end you'll be able to say, I can create social action stencil art to spark conversation.

So we've got lots of elements there that we're gonna be doing, we're gonna be creating, and you can see there's going to be a stencil about a social action.

We're also going to be aiming to start a conversation with this artwork.

So lots to think about.

In order to do this, we need to have a really clear understanding of a few keywords.

and I'm gonna go through them with you now.

So social action.

When people work together to make their community or the world better.

Conversation, an exchange of thoughts, ideas, or information between two or more people, Association, a connection we make in our minds between things or ideas based on something that those things have got in common.

So the things and the ideas, what have they got in common? And that link that we make is called an association.

Stencil, a sheet of material with a design shape or letters cut out.

This then used to apply a pattern or image by painting, drawing, or spray painting over the cutout areas, leaving the design on the surface underneath.

I wonder how many stencils you've seen.

Our lesson has got two learning cycles today.

We're gonna start making a stencil as a social action artwork.

We are then gonna move on to selecting materials purposefully.

Let's get started making our stencil.

What could social action mean? These students are having a conversation.

Andeep suggests, "Social suggests that it's about a group of people, a society, or maybe a community." Sophia suggests that action suggests doing something to help solve a problem may be improving lives.

And I think these two have really got to the heart of what social action means.

Social action is when people work together to make their community all the world better.

This can involve sparking a conversation, heightening awareness, solving problems, improving lives, standing up for what's right.

Social action art does not need to make tangible changes, but can simply make people think and raise awareness.

And this is often a really good place to start to make significant change over time.

Right, first check for understanding true or false.

Social action involves working together to improve communities by sparking conversation and heightening awareness only.

Pause the video and decide if you think that that statement is true or false.

Well done, how did you get on? Good work if you said that this was false.

This is because social action does involve working together with people to improve the community by sparking conversation and heightening awareness.

But it also involves solving problems, improving lives, and standing up for what's right.

It's a much broader term.

Social action art seeks to spark conversations by disrupting traditional thought patterns.

Conversations can be an important step in that social change.

So here we can see a process where someone's identified an issue, there's some community action.

This could be an artwork, an event, a workshop, all sorts of different things Which leads to conversation.

That conversation could be with the artist, or it could be between participants or viewers of that after the fact.

And this can lead to new ideas and new ways of thinking.

So another check for understanding, what's missing from this process, which the missing step? So we've got identify issues, community action, blank, and then new ideas.

Pause the video and decide what you think has been taken away from this process step.

Welcome back, how did you get on? Well done if you said conversation.

Sparking conversations is an important step in social action artworks.

To disrupt traditional thought patterns.

And it can be the first step in making social change.

Conversations in person can look like this.

Positive body language, maybe open body language facing each other that kind of thing.

Could be making eye contact or if someones just looking in each other's general direction.

Turn taking, so responding to what the other person is saying.

And even better conversations will include asking questions or repeating what you understand, both of which can make sure that both people understand the same meaning.

And staying on topic, not getting distracted or changing what we're discussing can really show a conversation where people are really deeply understanding each other.

Artists can spark conversation without speaking in person to the audience, through or by being unexpected, creating work that's memorable, challenging previous ideas, forming community and connection, and using words in their artwork.

All of these things help us to create a conversation without necessarily being there directly.

Okay, so check for understanding.

There are some gaps in this statement and I would like you to use the word bank to fill those gaps.

So artists can spark conversations without speaking in person to their audience by being blank, creating blank work, challenging blank ideas, forming community and blank, using something blank in their artwork.

And your word blank words are connection, memorable, previous, unexpected, and words.

Pause the video and fill all of those in so that you've got the completed phrase.

How did you get on? Well done if you said the artist can spark conversations without speaking in person to the audience by being unexpected, creating memorable work, challenging previous ideas, forming community and connection and using words in their work.

Artists who've used words to talk to the audience include, the Red Women's Workshop of the work titled, "Black Women Will Not Be Intimidated," from 1980 to '81.

And this work really spoke to strength and solidarity within that community.

Nina Nissan as part of the Lenthall Road workshop created "Rolling Sisters'" in 1983.

And this was about that connection between both able-bodied and people who use mobility aids.

And in that work we saw a wheelchair user and someone on roller skates and there was a real solidarity between the two.

And Christopher Wall created "Apocalypse Now," in 1988 where his words were were quite bold and maybe a little bit more anxiety driving in that particular piece 'cause of the war, what he was trying to communicate.

So what conversation does this artwork spark? It's got the words feeling good and a question mark.

Why not pause the video and have a conversation bout what you think this work might be about? What did you discuss then? You may have talked about was it about how someone physically feels? Are they feeling good in themselves and healthy and strong? You may have talked about is it something about their emotional wellbeing? The words give us some indication about what the artist is asking us to think about.

Rirkrit Tiravanija's work.

"Do We Dream Under the Same Sky," from 2016, and "Untitled 2013, Fear Eats the Soul from 2013," uses bold, clear text to talk directly to the audience.

Sophia shares that he stencils onto things like newspaper, but his writing is bold and stands out.

And you look into his work more.

He also used text on top of ping pong tables, which reflects the idea of the turn taking in a conversation.

Sam adds that, "It's like the artist is creating his own headline, a linking to current events." Especially when he is using those newspapers.

They've really gotten to the heart of how he's using that text.

One way to use words is to create stencils, which offer us a few benefits because stencils maintain legible text.

Are quick to apply.

We can use any font or design and can be repeated and used on different surfaces.

So there's lots of things that we can use with stencils that really benefit the work that we're producing.

So we're making a stencil.

You cut out the shape or letters to create a design and then you can dab paint or spray paint through those cutout areas.

What do you notice about the way the letters with enclosed spaces like the letters A, B, D, or O, and how they've been cut out? Have a look at this image here.

Have a little conversation with the person next to you about what you notice about how those letters have been constructed.

I'm just gonna highlight the bit I'd like you to think about.

Well done, what did you notice? Hopefully you've noticed that for letters with enclosed spaces like A, B, D, and O, probably thought about lowercase g, lowercase e, all have this effect.

You need to think about how to keep those inner parts attached to the stencil.

These connections are often called bridges, can ensure that the stencil remains a single usable piece.

So it creates a connection between the external paper and the internal shape so that we don't have a solid sort of circle cut out for the O.

You have that kind of ring shape.

So to define the letters, you need to require connections or bridges between those internal gaps and the external frame.

Here we have lowercase e that has been drawn nice and boldly in pencil.

And now a dashed or dotted line has been produced over the top of that.

It's been erased where that dotted line was.

And now we have the image of that design.

What was the purpose of that dotted line? What do you think? You wanna speak to the person next to you? Really well done if you said that dotted line, that dashed line helped you to decide where you are gonna bridge the internal section with the external frame.

Task A1.

Select a social action issue that's important to a community that you are part of.

You could think about an issue that matters to you that you know a lot about.

You might think of an issue that's related to your local area or the community.

Pause the video here and make some decisions about your social action issue.

Well done, how did you get on? Was it quite hard to narrow down what you wanted to focus on? You may have said the use of single use plastics in your lunchboxes.

You might have found that actually at lunchtime an awful lot of people have single use plastic and it's something you'd like to address.

You might have been thinking about your younger siblings or cousins and were worried about social media use for children under the age of 11.

You might have noticed the use of animal products in fashion and want to address something like that.

Or it could be about wellbeing and promoting positive wellbeing in school.

What did you come up with? Okay, so task A2.

I'd like you to create a mind map with short slogans that would spark conversation about your social action issue.

Make sure you keep them short, because we'll be censoring them as we move forward.

You could be persuasive in your language, you're trying to change someone's mind about or to alter a traditionally held view.

And think about if you want to use a question, will that help spark a conversation more effectively than just a statement on its own? Depends on the topic.

Pause the video and give yourself a fair amount of time to come up with these ideas.

I'd also like you to write all of your ideas down.

Please don't judge them before you record them.

You are only going to use one.

But the more that you record but more your ideas might snowball and improve as you are able to kind of bounce off or maybe even combine some of the ideas you've started with.

How did you get on? Did you find you ended up writing quite a lot? Well done.

You might have something that looks a little bit like this.

So this example is about promoting wellbeing.

And we have slogans like feeling good.

That's a question.

Care, body and mind, one step at a time.

Pause, breathe, and thrive.

And how are you? That's a question.

what did you come up with? Did you have a lot more than me? Okay, so task three, we're gonna start making our stencil.

So you're gonna create a stencil of your preferred slogan to spark conversation about your social action issue.

So you could draw large letters in pencil, think about using that dotted or dashed line to secure your internal gaps.

Erase the pencil marks around those dotted lines so that you know that you've got that shape correct.

And then you're gonna want to fold the card to cut inside of the letter.

You wanna make sure as the card is folded, that your letter is on both sides, and you cut through only the part you want to remove.

And you can see here a video of compiling that process.

So where you want to cut through, you can see cutting in from the fold, and then manipulating the paper and moving it around.

You don't need any of the blue elements, you only need the white frame.

As in my example, your colours may be different.

So don't worry about cutting all of the letters, the internal parts into lots of little pieces and discarding them, you don't need them.

Take your time and be very careful so that you end up with a nice, neat outcome.

If you do cut through any part that you didn't want to, use masking tape or cella tape to secure that at the back.

And then cut away any excess cella tape at the back.

Hello, how did you get on? Did you find that it was easier to work with those larger letters where you had lots of space to cut through the letter? Did you also choose to eliminate the internal parts of the letters? Not the gaps, but the actual wider part of the letter to make it easier to cut, well done.

So you may have cut a neat stencil, neatly cut your stencil, preserving those internal parts of the letters.

So I'm saying there about how you could have cut the line of the O nice and wide, but still kept that internal circle, well done.

Okay, so for part four, we're actually going to print from the stencil.

So you could place your stencil down flat and I highly recommend that if there's a curve to it, you are creating a gap that your material, your printing material could go through.

You are gonna secure it with tape.

And I highly recommend masking tape because then you can peel it back off your surface without damaging your surface.

And use stippling with vertical movements to gain a clear edge.

So if this is my paper, using my paintbrush I'm dabbing vertically like this, so I'm moving it gently.

That's gonna allow me to ensure that the paint goes on top of the stencil and doesn't spread underneath.

If I use a sweeping motion like this, I'm going to push that paint underneath that stencil.

I'm gonna ruin that crisp edge that I've produced.

I'm gonna peel the stencil carefully from the surface to reveal the print that I have made.

You can see here in the video, I've done a few of these where I'm using that vertical motion.

I'm using that vertical motion.

And you'll also notice that on the palette I've been just testing that stippling effect.

And what I'm actually looking at there is making sure that I've got the right amount of paint on.

Because when it's too thick, even when I place it down, if I have a lot of paint on the surface of the brush, as I place it down, it's gonna sludge out and I possibly go underneath my print Equally you want to make sure that you are using a lovely thick paint like acrylic, not something thin like an ink, watered down acrylic or watercolour.

'Cause what you're gonna then have is that liquid is gonna move underneath your card.

So making sure you think about all of those things.

Take your time and work methodically to cover all of your parts of your letter.

See you in a few minutes.

Pause the video here and make your stencil.

How did it go? Did you enjoy it? Have you been able to produce a really clear stencil? Did you find that keeping it with the masking tape in place allowed you to get really crisp edges and not have any blur or movement? And did you have to change how much paint you used depending on the surface that you are using, or as you work do you realise that you could put a little bit more 'cause it was coming out a bit thin? I imagine there's been lots of things you've learned through this process and you may have used stippling to produce your slogan in stencilling, well done.

Okay, so we're moving on to our second learning cycle, selecting materials purposefully.

Which materials have been used here? That's right, it's an envelope.

What's the impact on the message of this artwork by using a surface like an envelope.

Have a chat amongst yourselves about how you feel that the selection of the materials has impacted how we think about the message.

Artists select materials for a number of reasons.

It might be innovation, they're coming up with something new.

It could be to aid the message.

Or what the work is trying to tell people the meaning behind it.

It could be about accessibility.

Maybe there's an abundance of a particular material or it's easy or cheaper to get hold of.

It could be about sustainability, about being able to continue using that resource without having any negative impacts.

Could be about interactivity.

Maybe the material that you've selected allows the audience to interact with your work more effectively.

It could be to challenge traditional ideas.

It could be that you are thinking about what is traditional, and you purposefully as an artist want to do something that is unusual or stands against those traditions.

And it could be about the association between the material and the wider ideas.

So first check for understanding of this cycle.

True or false, artists will sometimes select a material to send a message in their work.

Pause the video and decide if you think that is true or false.

Well done.

What did you say? True.

Well done.

And the reason for this is that artists select materials to create more meaning in their work.

For example, using plastic bottles to highlight environmental consents.

One way artists can send a message in their work is to use a common association that people have between the material or the surface that they use.

Which image here uses associations between words and images best to spark a conversation about physical health? Pause the video and decide which of these images A, B, or C, you think is most effective in communicating a message about physical health.

How did you get on? Well done if you said A, using an image of tablet packets combined with the phrase feeling good, begins to make us think about whether actually this is a conversation about physical health.

You may have been able to come up with associations with newspaper.

Maybe if the newspaper from example C had had a story about physical health, you'd make that association and you might have come up with some abstract ideas to do with jigsaw puzzles.

But the most obvious and the quickest that would allow us to communicate with an audience member would be using those packets of tablets.

Artist Katie just and her community used the fabric from a high-vis-vest to create a banner which had the words "Hope," written across it, which was called the Hope banner, to highlight women's safety in public spaces.

How were the materials of purposeful selection? Have a chat amongst yourselves about why using a hi-vis jacket might enhance her message of hope when she's talking about safety in public spaces For women.

Aisha shares, "Hope means that you want something to happen.

So maybe the vest highlights that they're hoping for safety." Alex adds, "Maybe the artwork uses high-vis-vest to raise the issue of people being safe and seen." And I think that Aisha and Alex have really come to something here with the idea of a high-vis-jacket being used for visibility and to promote safety.

And linking that with women's safety in public spaces really enhances that message.

The materials that we choose as an artist can help to communicate a message to the viewer.

Further artists who use materials purposefully include "Social Fabric," which was a piece which was created in 1991 by Rita Keegan.

And in that work, the types of materials that selected by herself and the community that have contributed to the work have greater meanings and importance.

And then Chris Ofili produced a piece of work in 2013 called "R.

I.

P.

Stephen Lawrence 1974 to 1993." And in this memorial work for Stephen Lawrence, Chris Ofili used a previous artwork of his own.

So he's layering the meaning from that piece into this new one.

I wonder if you can think of any other examples of artworks that have used materials purposefully to deepen the meaning.

Okay, so we're into our first practical task of cycle two.

So I would like you to match the below surfaces with the most likely associations.

You may be able to come up with more than one association for the surfaces, but I want you to think about the one that you think is the most likely that most people would come up with.

So your surfaces are fabric, book pages, cardboard, newspaper, food packaging, and envelopes.

And your associations are correspondence, current events, education, uniform, storage, and consumerism.

Pause the video and make those links now.

How did you get on? Did you find that you were able to make those links quite clearly? Were some of them more obvious than others? Or were easier to imagine that most people would consider them the same? If you got fabric linking to uniform, book pages linking to education, cardboard to storage, newspapers to current events, food packaging to consumerism, and envelopes to correspondence.

Really well done.

Okay, so for the second task, we're gonna combine materials and the text from task A.

So you're gonna need that stencil that you produced in Task A.

You're gonna select a surface that adds the most meaning for your Task A stencil.

So thinking about the meaning behind the social action cause that you selected, what could you use to stencil onto that would deepen that meaning? You may need to prepare the surface that you would like to print onto.

You might need to add a wash of paint, or to dry brush back into it to prime that surface.

You may have something really glossy and dry brush back into that, so it'll take your stencil more effectively.

But whatever it is that you do, make sure that your surface is fully dry before you place your stencil onto it, so that you don't end up tearing your stencil.

You're then going to stencil onto your surface stippling carefully to gain those lovely clean edges so that your text is nice and clear.

You could experiment with the colour of the text, and you could also experiment with the positioning or the repetition of your text.

Reflect on the success that you've created in deepening the message of your social action issue.

Think about how you've made it better with the types of services you've used.

Give yourself a good amount of time to complete this task.

I would say you need at least 15 or 20 minutes, but you may be able to get more than one stencil done in that time.

So experiment with how you looks when you produce it.

Can you do different versions? You don't have to come out with only one outcome.

How did you get on? Did you enjoy it? Did you find that there were any difficulties using different materials? Did it print better on two different surfaces? Here Izzy shares her example.

"I paired the envelope, which is a symbol for communication with 'Feeling good'." The phrase, "To spark conversation about wellbeing." And Jacob has developed this.

"So we've repeated and rotated the stencil, adding multiple question marks to reflect the difficulty some people face in expressing their feelings.

This created a busier, confusing design." Do you think this one communicates the messages clearly? And finally, Jun has said, "We stencilled the slogan onto a book page that we prepared with paint.

It makes the lettering stand out and is visually effective and attention grabbing." But he adds, "The association to promote positive wellbeing is not as strong as the envelope.

So we need to develop this further." Did you find that you want to develop your stencil and think more about the surface you printed onto? So what is social action? Social action is when people work together to improve their community or the world by standing up for what's right.

Helping others, fixing unfairness and starting conversations.

Sparking a conversation is a key part of a social action project.

Artists need to be very clear about the messages they wish to convey.

Artists select non-traditional materials to add meaning to work due to the association with or symbolism of the materials.

Well done for all your efforts today and your excellent engagement.

I hope you've enjoyed what you've learnt and feel proud of the work that you've produced.

I look forward to seeing you in our next lesson.